Sci/tech tidbits in and around New Hampshire
Dartmouth Engineering to study solar system’s icy planets
An engineering lab at Dartmouth has been awarded two grants totaling $1.25 million to conduct planetary science research relating to the geophysics and astrobiology of icy planets in our solar system. The research could lead to clues about the nature of the icy...
Protecting a small river also means protecting 37 square miles of land
In my town, a property owner recently had a tussle with the planning board because of the direction of water flow. If you poured a bucket of water onto the ground in one part of the land she wanted to subdivide, it would eventually flow into an unimportant bog. But if...
New Hampshire patents through Aug. 29
By Targeted News Service The following patents were assigned in New Hampshire from Aug. 22 to Aug. 29.Technical Sales Solutions Assigned Patent for Electromagnetic Pulse/High Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse Filter System Technical Sales Solutions, Weare, New Hampshire,...
NH (finally!) raises net-metering limit for city solar
UPDATE: I was reminded that this applies to many energy-producing systems, not just solar. That could in theory mean wind (unlikely) but definitely covers small hydropower. Nashua owns a couple of small hydropower dams and this might let them boost their output. Towns...
Theft via email con (like the one that hit Peterborough) is so common it has its own acronym
The news that criminals used fake e-mails to fool the town of Peterborough into sending them million-dollar payments comes as no real surprise to the state’s cybersecurity chief. “We’ve heard about this multiple times over the past four years,” said Denis Goulet,...
Wildlife app in hand, Bioblitz will swarm onto town-owned lands next month
Around 4 percent of the land in New Hampshire is owned by towns and cities but if my experience is anything to go by, a lot of it is a closed book. “Municipalities don’t always have a lot of good information about the biodiversity and ecology of those lands,” is how...
You want UFO stuff, Canadian TV? UNH has UFO stuff!
From UNHinnovation: UNHInnovation recently licensed various pieces from the Betty and Barney Hill collection - UFO-related artifacts from Betty and Barney Hill, the couple who made the first well-documented and widely reported UFO abduction report in the United States...
Spoofed accounts swipe millions from NH town, twice
Cybersecurity is an increasing concern in NH as everything goes online, where a whole new set of bad guys are waiting. I wrote about it in May (Cybersecurity bootcamp launched) and April (Cybersecurity Initiative) and today I wrote about it because a small town was...
COVID: More people are now getting sick in NH than getting vaccinated
As I write this, the state’s official numbers indicated that 2,712 state residents have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in the past two weeks, about 8% more than the 2,520 who have been added to the tally of those who are fully vaccinated. In other words, we’re falling...
Science Cafe (live! but without beer) ponders clean power
UPDATE: Here's the link to the video. Enjoy the bubble machine and the dancers in the background! For speed listeners: You can skip the three-minute intro (although you'll miss Sam's cute kid) - first we talk about electricity; at about 30 min. in we switch to...
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Science Cafe NHAbout Granite Geek
Dave Brooks has written a science/tech column since 1991 – yes, that long – and has written this blog since 2006, keeping an eye on topics of geekish interest in and around New Hampshire, from software to sea level rise, population dynamics to printing (3-D, of course). He moderates monthly Science Cafe NH discussions, beer in hand, and discusses the geek world regularly on WGIR-AM radio..
Brooks earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics but got lost on the way to the Ivory Tower and ended up in a newsroom. He has reported for newspapers from Tennessee to New England. Rummage through his bag of awards you’ll find oddities like three Best Blog prizes from the New Hampshire Press Association and a Writer of the Year award from the N.H. Farm and Forest Bureau, of all places. He joined the Concord Monitor in 2015.